“Thank you. I do not bet,” Sard said.
Mr. Wiskey looked at him, but thought it better to be quiet.
“Quite right, sir,” he said. “I respect your feelings. I’m a gentleman myself and can appreciate them. They do you credit, sir.” He turned round to the ring again, took another wrench and spit from his pomegranate, bit into the seeds and said something in a low voice, with a full mouth in Spanish, to Sumecta, about “one of nature’s bloody caballeros.” There was a chill upon the talk for nearly a minute; then Sumecta turned round, had a look at Sard, and surveyed the benches behind him.
“There’s old Abner,” he said.
“Where?”
“In the back row, about seven from the end.”
Mr. Wiskey burst into song, parodying a familiar advertisement:
“He’s one of the party,
Old Abner MacCarty,
On the day of St. Patrick, at ten.”